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THE LIMITS OF 


PARTY OBLIGATION. 


AISJ ADDRESS 

Delivered before the Municipal League of Philadelphia, 
* 

December 15th, 1892, 



BY 

HENRY BUDD, 

Of the Philadelphia Bar. 


Published by 

THE MUNICIPAL LEAGUE, 
1893. 


















The Limits of Party Obligation. 


I N’ all free nations government by party seems to be indis¬ 
pensable. It is natural that such should be the case, 
for government by party has its root in the very 
nature of man, and its growth is fostered by his prog¬ 
ress in the line of political thought, wherever that thought 
and its natural result, action, are not suppressed by arbitrary 
power. Man is gregarious; ideas can be transformed into 
action on an extended scale only by union; cooperation is 
necessary for achievement. 

In an unenlightened state of society people form them¬ 
selves into groups, or rather followings, about the strong man, 
and personal leadership divides the community into bodies, 
which uphold the rule of this or that individual; personal 
1 devotion is then at its height; the followers of each leader 

! cling to him with a personal fidelity; he is a hero. Once 

attracted to him by the force of his personal character, or 
otherwise, an unreasoning spirit of loyalty takes possession 
of his adherents; his enemy is their enemy; his friend their 
friend; his will their will; all is referred to the chief. As 
man progresses, as his mind becomes more enlightened, when 
he learns to criticise and to search out the motives, the 
reasons of the actions of his chief, he gradually comes to fol¬ 
low him as representing some particular policy or line of 
action, some idea, or, perhaps, merely some sentiment; this is 
the first step away from merely personal fealty; he follows 
the chief but as the embodiment of an idea, although as yet 
he does not regard the person of the chief and the idea 
embodied as capable of divorce. Later, man recognizes the 
fact that not only can there be a separation, in thought, of the 
leader from the idea, but also that the leader may be a bad 
exponent of ideas, or an insufficient instrument in the carry¬ 
ing out of a policy. This leads him to consider to which his 
allegiance is, of right, due—to the man who assumes to repre¬ 
sent the truth, or to the truth itself? As in his thought he 

1 









2 


distinguishes between the abstract and the concrete, he finds in 
the one the truth, in the other the mere accidental representa¬ 
tive or symbol of it, he rises above the mere devotion to per¬ 
son and fixes his loyalty upon principle, and upon that found¬ 
ation are, or profess to be, erected modern parties, and the 
system of government by party, which has come to its highest 
development in the two freest countries of the world, Eng¬ 
land and the United States of America. 

Now, as we review the history and the present condition 
of those two great countries, we may unhesitatingly say that 
whatever evils have sprung from party government, whatever 
injustice has been caused by the excess of party feeling, the 
results of the existence of parties have been, on the-whole, 
vastly beneficial. It is hard to imagine how popular liberty 
and free government could be maintained without them, and 
it is the duty of the citizen, in regard to all great political 
matters to belong to one party or another. There is little 
sympathy due to the “ non-partizan ” citizen at large, whose 
non-partizanship, boast he never so loudly of it, is but too often 
but a cloak for indolence, which prevents his examining into 
and making up his mind upon the great questions which arise ; 
or for indifference; or sometimes even for cowardice and self- 
seeking. There is much to be said in favor of the old Athe¬ 
nian law, which punished severely the man who, in times of 
public tumult and threatened overturn of government, took 
neither one side nor the other; punished, mark you, not the 
man who espoused the unsuccessful side, as an enemy of the 
people, after the fashion of a Eoman proscription; not the man 
who joined the insurrection as a rebel; not the man who 
attempted to uphold a falling power, as an instrument of 
tyranny and oppression; but the man who stood aside, ready 
to submit to either party, but who raised no hand 'to exalt 
either, or to put down either. 

Party, properly conducted, is a great educator; it is 
more—from its organization it gives to men, capable of serving 
the public in high station, opportunity to demonstrate their 
ability ; the opposition of parties ensures the presentation of 
both sides of any question of public moment; it ensures the 
existence of an organized body of men, active and united in 
the maintainance of those rights, belief in which enters into 
the party, creed, and interested in making their fellow-citizens 
take an interest in what interests themselves, and, in various 
ways, compels persons who, otherwise, would be listless 




3 




and careless of public matters, to at least bear about them, 
and probably to judge and to act with reference to them. 
I say here, and I think it not at all inconsistent with the position 
which I occupy here to-night by the courtesy of your Society, 
that I, for one, thoroughly believe in party. I believe that 
a republic in which party feeling is dead is on the verge of 
decay and destruction itself; and furthermore, that where 
questions upon which parties may be properly formed are in¬ 
volved (and from this category should be excluded everything 
which has not its foundation in a belief that the enforcement 
of a principle, or the carrying out of a policy, is for the public 
good), the dogma, “ Principles, not men ” should be unhesi¬ 
tatingly accepted. I will go so far as to say that in parties, 
and for the sake of party, it often becomes the duty of the 
good citizen to lay aside personal predilections; to suppress 
personal preferences ; to stifle personal resentment, and while, 
under no circumstances, is he justified in doing or conniving 
at what is wrong, or dishonest, or dishonorable, he may often 
be required to accept a compromise which is distasteful to 
himself and, if her,cannot, through his party, accomplish all 
he would in what he considers the right direction, to accept 
what he can obtain, and patiently bide the time, waiting and 
working within party lines until the day when his hopes may 
be gratified, and his objects fully accomplished, and for the 
present to solace himself with the reflection: “ Quadam est 
jprodire tenus si non ultra dabat .” 

The difference between being willing to take what can be 
obtained and to wait, and insistance upon an immediate fulfill¬ 
ment of a political end, is often what, in great part, constitutes the 
difference between a statesman and a mere enthusiast. Cavour 
was none the less the patriot, and the father of Italian unity, 
because in 1859 at the treaty of Villa Franca, when Italy 
failed to obtain the enfranchisement of both the Northern 
States from the Austrian rule, he assented to a peace, which 
freed Lombardy while it left Venetia still in the possession of 
the stranger. 

But I also recognize the fact that party government has 
its limits. It has an immense realm, which is its legitimately. 
A battle field wide as the empyrean is reserved for the contests 
of party, but such a field befits only giants, and giants should 
contend only about things great, high, majestic in themselves.. 
The Titans might well, consistently with the law of their 
being, strive with Jove for the possession of Olympus, and 



4 


Jove might well use his thunderbolts to defend such a posses¬ 
sion, but what would have been thought of the Titans had 
they interfered in the contest of the frogs and mice, or what 
would we have thought had Jove used his bolts to knock 
down shellbarks from a hickory tree? 

No! Parties must be formed upon great principles, and 
in support of those principles, the good citizen may even 
follow the lead of one whose private character.he cannot 
respect, so long as he is assured that such person will be loyal 
to the principles or carry out the policy of the party to which 
the citizen belongs, and it must be an extreme case, although, 
perhaps such a case may arise, which will justify him in vot¬ 
ing even for a good man, whose very excellence will be used, 
the more effectually to subvert the principles which the voter 
believes to be true. 

We may well agree with Burke when he defines party 
as “a body of men united for promoting by their joint 
endeavours the national interest upon some particular princi¬ 
ple upon which they are all agreed,” and further endorse with 
these limits his words: “ Everj^ honorable connection will 
:avow it as their first purpose to pursue every just method to 
put the men who hold their opinions into such a condition as 
may enable them to carry their common plans into execution 
with all the power and authority of the State. As this power 
is attached to certain situations, it*is their duty to contend for 
these situations. Without a proscription of others they are 
bound to give to their own party preference in all things, and 
by no means for private considerations to accept any offer of 
power in which the whole body is not included; nor to suffer 
themselves to be led, ‘or to be controlled, or to be overbalance^ 
in office, or in council by those who contradict the very 
fundamental principles on which their party is formed and 
even those upon which every fair connection must stand.” 

The realm in which party fealty rules, as of right, does 
not, however, include the region of things which cannot 
be questions of political principle; which are at most questions 
of mere local business policy, of business ability, of common 
honesty, and such are principally, one might almost say, ex¬ 
clusively, the questions which arise in modern municipal 
governments. These questions are not properly of a political 
character at all. Now here some classicist may interrupt me 
with a reminder that polls means a city, and that politics with 
the Greeks meant the affairs of the city. I admit this 


4 






5 


but is the modern city the ancient city? Are their constitu¬ 
tions identical or even similar ? Are their powers the same 
or even alike? Are the affairs discussed in and the acts 
passed by the governing body of a modern city, whether it be 
a town meeting or a council, and which affect the city, the 
same as the affairs discussed in and acts passed by the govern¬ 
ing body of the ancient city and which affected it? Most 
emphatically, No. The ancient city was the State—the 
Nation. There was in Greece no central power, no nation, 
as we understand it, not even a permanent union or federation 
of States; bound together for a limited period from time to 
time, when a common danger threatened, when that danger 
passed the bond snapped and the cities became again rivals 
and enemies, each to itself the State, and, although a common 
religion and participation in the same great religious festivals 
supplied a bond of sentiment and made the Greeks look upon 
Hellenes, though not of his race, as favoured by the gods 
above the non-Hellenic races, yet they did not prevent war 
between the cities or in any way tend to the creation of a 
power superior to the city. One city might, indeed, become 
tributary, through conquest or otherwise, to another city, but' 
the city was still the State. The modern city is a corpora¬ 
tion of limited powers, created by the mandate of a superior 
legislature, by which its rights have been granted and defined, 
and by which it may be deprived of those rights, except so 
far as the legislature is restrained by the Constitution, which 
itself, however, may be changed by the people of the State at 
large, and so the city be deprived of even constitutional 
rights. 

In the ancient city, the/citizen had to pass, whether in 
the Pnyx or in the commitia, or in the assembly, upon 
questions of foreign policy, of peace or war, of the enactment 
of laws of property, of the extension or restriction of the 
rights of suffrage or office holding; he had to elect not only 
those who should administer justice and preserve order within 
the city, but those who should represent her abroad, com¬ 
mand her armies and her navies, make treaties of peace and 
commerce. Hoes the modern citizen when he acts, either in 
town meeting, or through his delegate in councils, pass upon 
such questions? Hoes he not rather decide whether he shall 
have concrete, or Belgian block, or cobble stone, or rubble 
pavement on his streets? Whether they shall be lighted 
with gas or with electricity? Whether an additional reservoir 


-6 


is needed to insure, to the good people of his town, a suffi- 
• cient supply of water? How many clerks he will allow a 
particular public officer to employ, and how much they shall 
be paid? And (the greatest question of all, racking the munici¬ 
pal brain, puzzling the municipal judgment, requiring for its 
settlement the services of many expert professional, but 
unofficial, assistants and all the added strength that can be 
supplied by refreshments furnished at the hour Of considera¬ 
tion and paid for by neither the municipality nor the municipal 
legislator) what particular kind of public conveyance, con¬ 
trolled by private power and for private profit he will permit 
to occupy his streets? 

Does the citizen, acting as stated in the modem munici¬ 
pality, select generals, foreign embassadors or those who shall 
make laws upon great moral subjects, those who shall deter¬ 
mine the relations of his city with all the world, whose unwise 
action may bring upon the city war and disaster, or whose wise 
and conciliatory measures may cause its harbors to be filled 
with foreign shipping and its streets crowded with strangers 
seeking to purchase its manufactures ? Ho. The officers he 
selects are to see that deeds are correctly and with reasonable 
promptness copied into books; that writs are handed to whom¬ 
soever may purchase them; that the writs are served; that 
property taken on execution be sold by a competent auctioneer; 
that taxes are assessed at a proper amount to defray the munic¬ 
ipal expenses; that those taxes, when assessed, are collected; 
that coal is shovelled into a retort that may come out gas, be 
passed through a purifier and made fit for illuminating pur¬ 
poses; that firemen be employed and properly drilled and 
disciplined to preserve buildings from destruction by fire; t^at 
a police force be maintained to guard the peace of the city from 
the nocturnal brawler and burglar, and to pursue and capture 
the law-breaker. The questions submitted, the matters con¬ 
sidered, the officers elected have not to do with political affairs; 
taking polls, in its proper sense when used to express a 
government, namely, the State; they have to do with munic¬ 
ipal affairs in the modern sense, that is, with affairs which 
are highly important in that that they bear upon the internal 
peace and good order of a city and the comfort, health and 
happiness of the dwellers therein, but have nothing whatever 
to do with the relations of the city or the State to the world 
at large, or with the policy of the superior legislature from 
which the city derives its power. Is this not too plain for 






7 


I 


argument ? Do I not seem to waste your time by merely 
alluding to it? Yet there are people who will persist in 
proclaiming by their actions, if not by their words, that there 
is no difference in principle between the election of a constable 
and that of the President of the United States, and who regard 
the loss of one office equally with that of the other as a party 
defeat; the difference between the disaster in one case and the 
other being of degree and not of kind. 

Now, what possible difference can it make to us or to the 
public, when we go to the office of the Recorder of Deeds, 
whether the man who copies our deed be a Democrat, or a 
Republican, or a Prohibitionist, or a Populist, provided he 
write a fair hand and give the deed back to us in a reasonably 
clean condition, within a reasonable time? What difference 
does it make whether the man who oversees a job of street 
paving be a Democrat, or a Republican, or a Prohibitionist, or 
a Populist? What we want is a man who will see that the 
foundation of the street is laid according to the contract and 
according to law, and that the pavers drive home with energy 
the superjacent stones and make them firm. And when a 
brave fireman risks his life in entering a burning house 
that he may save the lives of its inmates, or drags his 
hose up a ladder that he may the more effectually direct its 
stream against the devouring element and check its ravages, 
do we ask before giving way to feelings of admiration or break¬ 
ing out into applause, what are his politics, or the politics ot 
the superior officer by whom he is directed, or of the head of 
the department to which he belongs? 

Yet there are men who will say that on account of 
the party it is necessary, or it is fitting, that all the officers 
charged with the performance of duties of the character just 
mentioned should be selected from amongst the persons of the 
particular political belief which they themselves happen to 
hold ; that it is necessary for the party to control the appoint¬ 
ment of the clerks of the Recorder or the Register, the com¬ 
missioners or inspectors of Highways, the firemen, the 
police! Why, so far has the feeling gone, that the other day 
when a physician was selected to aid in keeping the cholera 
from the city, it was made a matter of remark, a subject of com¬ 
mendation in the newspapers, that his politics were not asked 
until after his appointment! Yes, men seem actually to think, 
and practically do require, that a person must hold sound tariff’ 
or sound money principles, or be a believer in centralization, or 


8 


in local self-government, or at least profess to belong to tin 
party bolding such principles, before he can be permitted tl 
copy a deed, sell a writ, or arrest a pickpocket. And the peo 
pie who practically teach and practice this doctrine have the 
actual support of the majority of the community; the actual 
support I say, although many doubtless give it unconsciously, 
and would shrink from an expressed declaration of adherj 
ence to so monstrous a doctrine if put forth in plain, naked 
exposure. 

How has this come to pass? Certainly not from any¬ 
thing inherent in the nature of the offices to be filled, but' 
primarily from the fact that the people, through negligence, 
have lost sight of the distinction which exists between offices 
of different kinds; have neglected to discriminate between their 
functions, and, because offices of vastly different characters are, 
speaking generally, filled in the same way, by the same method 
of election or appointment, although by different constitu¬ 
encies, have come to regard an office simply as an office, and, 
carelessly, to apply a rule perfectly applicable to the filling of 
one office to another with which it, of right, has nothing to 
do. This negligence of the people is taken advantage of, 
this lack of discrimination is encouraged, by'the politician of 
the less philosophical sort, who regards party as simply a 
means to obtain power and emolument, and not as the instru¬ 
ment to be used solely for the public good, and so its evil re¬ 
sults are magnified; but the origin, that which renders it pos¬ 
sible for the baser politician to obtain his advantage, is the 
confusion, the result of indolence, in the mind of the voter. : 
It may here be added that in this particular community this 
confusion and the evils resulting from it have been aggravated 
by the provisions of the Constitution of 1878, and of certain 
acts of the legislature for what is called minority representation 
where it is applied to municipal officers, such as City Commis¬ 
sioners or administrative boards, either by the direct provision 
that all of a Certain board shall not be of one political faith, or 
by the less direct enactment that when two or more of a certain 
kind of officers are to be chosen the citizen shall not vote for 
the full number to be elected. 

Minority representation has its place, undoubtedly, but 
it is a very limited one. In a Constitutional Convention it is 
well to provide for it, because the office of that Convention is 
to prepare a Constitution for submission to the people, and it 
is well that the people should not be called upon to decide 




9 


upon its rejection or adoption until after all the possible con¬ 
siderations which should govern or affect the decision have 
been presented by able advocates; that is, until after all sides 
have been heard ; but, outside of such a body, there are few, 
if any, cases in which minority representation can have a good 
effect. It certainly is not proper, in a political legislative 
body, whose vote makes the law, to have members sitting as 
representatives of an avowed minority and because they are 
of that minority, and not because they have been chosen by 
the majority of a local constituency, although that majority 
may happen to belong to the party which in the State or 
country, considered as a whole, is in the minority. It is 
decidedly objectionable in executive office, where so much 
depends upon unity of action, while, when we come to apply 
it to municipal offices, it expressly recognizes the existence of 
parties in matters which are not party matters at all, and so 
encourages, almost forces upon the mind of the voter, the 
continuance of the wretched confusion in which began his 
feeling that all offices, even those which could not, by the 
most remote possibility, legitimately affect a party question, 
must be filled by party men. And it also has a very bad 
practical effect in this, that it takes away from the minority 
party, if it only nominate as many persons as by the system 
in operation it is sure to elect, all inducement to put forward 
its best men in the hope of overcoming a majority, since, 
bad or good, they are sure to be put in office, not as the 
choice of the people, but as the choice of the party; while if 
it nominate as many persons as does the majority party, the 
temptation to what is known as trading seems, or has seemed 
in times past, too strong to be resisted. This practical effect 
is mentioned, however, merely by the way, parenthetically, 
as it were. 

Of the evil results of the confusion which exists, I need 
hardly speak. Your presence here to-night is a protest 
against them. But yet they will bear a little consideration. 

The results of this confusion affect us harmfully, both in 
the domain of politics, properly so-called, and in the domain 
of municipal affairs. 

They affect us in the first, for they bring into the realm 
of national politics matters and considerations which have no 
business there, and so they obscure the political view, and 
sometimes even cause a false report to be given by the elec¬ 
tions which concern politics properly. If a certain party in a 


/ 






10 


certain place controls the municipal offices, the municipal 
patronage, the municipal contracts, as such party , it may, nay, 
it will, draw to itself persons who simply seek their own profit 
or their own local advancement, and will cause them to enrol 
themselves as members of one or the other national party, 
vote its ticket, support by their votes its measures and policy, 
although they have no belief whatever in the teachings of 
that party, or perhaps know nothing at all about them, so 
that we may have one shouting for Protection that he may be 
made a deputy sheriff, and another for Free Trade that he 
may become the foreman of a hose company! Now, it is 
manifest that votes so given to a great national party really 
mean nothing, when considered as an expression of the voter’s 
thought, and yet they count, and so we may have conceivably 
an apparent majority in national matters for a policy which, 
in reality, does not meet the approval of the greater number 
of the citizens. 

Again, this confusion of ideas, this carrying into practice 
the thought that all offices should be filled according to the 
political views of their holders, renders possible and easy 
that dangerous form of corruption known to politicians as 
trading, which has more than once been the means of defeat¬ 
ing the will of the people. 

If people were not in the habit of voting for Federal 
Electors and for Congressmen, and for purely municipal officers 
under the same party appellation, it is not likely that an 
organization whose sole claim to the allegiance of its members 
and followers, is that they belong to the same party, would be 
able to turn its following bodily into the enemy’s camp upoq 
a question of national moment, in return for a similar service 
rendered by that enemy in the matter of the municipal 
election. tJnless it professed party principles, such an organiza¬ 
tion could not exist, it could not attract followers. The time 
has fortunately not yet come, when an association, organized 
for the avowed purpose of obtaining municipal offices for its 
members and parcelling out among them municipal patron¬ 
age, can command any popular support; it must, therefore, 
either be an exponent of party principles or must masquerade 
as such, and having obtained a following, it may then estab¬ 
lish such a discipline that its leaders may cast the votes ot 
the association and its following in accordance with their 
own selfish views, but if the filling of municipal offices were 
in popular estimation distinct from federal politics, how could 


il 


the stupidest voter be persuaded that it was good for the 
party to lose a federal election, to lose a Congressman, when 
the party got nothing in return in the way of a partizan city 
or county officer? Just as it is impossible to establish com¬ 
mercial relations between two countries, when one has nothing 
to give to the other in return for its products or manufactures, 
so political trading would become impossible, because there 
would be nothing to trade with. This is not the case now, 
and it is currently believed that what is known as political 
trading, has in the history of this country taken place to the 
corruption of the ballot, and sometimes with the effect of 
causing an election to result very differently from what it 
would have done, had the electors considered simply, and by 
itself the political question, which was submitted for their 
decision. 

But from another point of view the confusion of party 
and municipal matters has been productive of evil, and that 
evil, in that it works in the domain of municipal affairs, I 
take it, is more within the purview of your League, and it is 
against it that your forces are especially directed. The evil is 
that the confusion prevents the municipality from obtaining 
the best service in the conduct of its business. 

What should be the qualifications of a municipal officer? 
Simply that he should be able to effectually do the work of 
the office in which he is placed, and that he should do it. As 
between two men, either of whom is willing to take a place 
which requires a certain kind of work, a reasonable man 
would naturally take the competent rather than the incom¬ 
petent man; he would be thought a fool should he act other¬ 
wise. If both men were competent, although one were superior 
to the other, the employer might possibly, for personal rea¬ 
sons, be led by favoritism, or by a whim take the inferior, 
always provided he were competent, but further than this no 
reasonable man would go. Should not this be the rule in the 
selection of a municipal servant ? But how is it now ? It is 
thus: A and B are nominated by their respective parties for, 
say, District Attorney. A is an accomplished lawyer, a pro¬ 
found scholar, an eloquent orator, a man of unblemished 
character, of untiring industry, of the highest moral worth. 
B is a man of very ordinary professional attainments ; while 
he has never done anything which can be laid hold upon by 
the law, he is known to have been not over scrupulous in his 
professional life, and is regarded with scant respect by his 


12 


brethren at the bar; but he is a very shrewd politician (using 
the word in its lower sense) and by a series of artful manoeuvres 
has prevented C, a very much superior man, from obtaining 
the nomination of his party, and has obtained it for himself. 
If I were going, as a private man, to retain counsel, I should 
not hesitate for a moment between A and B. I should feel 
that in the hands of one, my case was safe, that in those of 
the other it might be lost through incompetence, and I start 
for the polls, recognizing the fact that the city ought to have 
the best counsel she can get; that her affairs are of great 
importance, and require men of high attainments for their 
transaction; also that the city would be better served by A 
than by B, and feeling rather inclined to vote for him, but I 
am stopped. Hold, what are you going to do? A does not 
belong to our party, he belongs to the other. Will you 
betray our party? Will you give to the great national cause 
it represents a set back by the defeat of its candidate B ? 
True, B is inferior to A. We are very sorry B is not better, 
and we are sorry that C was not nominated, and we wish A 
belonged to us. But what of that, A does not belong to us; 
down with him! Principles, not men! Ah, that great saying, 
but how abused time after time in its application! As said 
Madame Boland on the guillotine : “ Oh ! liberty, how many 
crimes are committed in thy name! ” 

So I vote for B and reject A, and others do likewise, 
and so the city instead of being served by a competent 
man puts its affairs into the hands of an inferior one. Now, 
this is no fancy picture, and the insistance on the holding of 
particular party views as a condition of rendering service to 
the municipality, is carried further than the time of choice at 
the polls, and lower down than the head of a department. It 
is within the memory of many here present when, in this city, 
a lawyer of very great ability, familiar with the city’s business, 
energetic, devoted to his work, assiduous in the study of his 
cases, powerful in argument before the court, popular with 
his profesional brethren and with the public, who held the 
position of a Chief Assistant City Solicitor, offended by the 
position taken at Washington by the leaders of his party, dis¬ 
sented therefrom, and was promptly turned out of his office, 
when the matters about which he was employed were as 
much affected by his views with reference to the Emancipa¬ 
tion Proclamation as they could have been by his opinion on the 
atmosphere of Jupiter or the truth of the nebular hypothesis. 


13 


But the removal took place; it was demanded; it was heartily 
approved in certain quarters, and by intelligent men, by men 
who, if the gentleman in question had been retained by them 
in one of their own causes, would have regarded his retire¬ 
ment from it as something fraught with disaster to their in¬ 
terests and to be prevented by all reasonable means. 

This matter seems so plain that one is almost ashamed to 
speak of it; to dwell on it seems almost an affront to the 
listener and an advertisement of the stupidity of the speaker, 
who thinks so trite a matter needs urging home. Yet, plain, 
trite, as it is, let us look about us and we see the practice of this 
community about the time of the election of municipal 
officers, and in dealing with the appointees of such officers 
when elected, to be just what I have described. 

The evil does not stop here. Not only does the confusion of 
which we complain make easy the choice of the inferior in place 
of the superior for office, but it often prevents the municipality 
from receiving even the best work of which those chosen to 
office or given position for mere political reasons are capable. 
What is the requirement for continuance in office? Faithful 
public service only ? Oh no! something must be added to it— 
the pariy organization must be served as well as the public. 
The officer must make his appointments from his own 
party; he must make from his salary contributions to 
party funds; he must do party work; if an inferior officer, he 
must belong to his ward or division committee, he must 
canvass his division, in some cases he may be held responsible 
to the party chief for the vote cast by that division. I re¬ 
member a few years ago, before the abolition of the Gas Trust, 
it was currently believed that retention in a petty position in 
the gas works was made dependent upon the success of the 
person holding it in carrying his division or doing other work 
at the behest of the party chief. Now, this is all wrong; it is 
unjust to the employee, it is unjust to the public; it interferes 
with work. A public employee is engaged to do a certain 
definite work, it is a wrong to the public if the time that be¬ 
longs to it be taken from its work that the official may per¬ 
form partizan services; if, for instance, when the citizen goes 
to the sheriff’s office upon business in business hours, he finds 
that the sheriff is in attendance upon a party conclave, or that 
his deputy is engaged in going through his ward to “ set up” 
delegates. It is unjust to the employee if he be required by 
those who control patronage and within whose gift lies office 


14 


and position, to devote his time out of office hours to party 
work as the price of the retention in his place. If he choose 
of his own free will to do party work in his own time, of 
course he has a right to do so. I would never, simply be¬ 
cause he held office, deprive a man of freedom to exercise 
freely his rights and prerogatives as a citizen—but it is an 
outrage to bring to hear upon him inducement or compulsion, 
arising out of hope of promotion or fear of dismissal, to do party 
work, which if it were not called party work—work done for 
the advancement of party principles—in many cases would 
not he done by the employee of whom it is demanded. I do 
not say that the leader or boss who exacts the work always 
requires it in the belief that it is for the advancement of party 
principles, the benefit of the country upon definite lines of 
public policy, but that the carrying of party into municipal 
matters puts him in a position to exact it under the plea of 
the good of party, when he would not dare to demand it 
boldly as personal service to himself, and enables the man from 
whom it is exacted to persuade himself that his service is to 
his party in support of principle—that he is a soldier doing 
service to his cause at the behest of his leader and not a slave, 
or, at best, a hireling doing the will of a master. With this 
idea in his mind, it is no wonder that the public employee 
begins to regard liis office not only as representing to him 
w r ork to be done for the public, but as an instrument- to be 
used for the advancement of his party, and so he comes to 
serve two masters, the public and the party organization, and 
ofttimes he serves the latter more zealously than the former. 

Again this confusion of offices, as we may call it, renders 
possible the exaction from municipal officers and employees 
of contributions to political funds, sometimes by way of assess¬ 
ment, sometimes by means of an apparently voluntary gift, the 
generous disposition of the contributor being quickened by an 
apprehension that should he not contribute he may find that 
he has acted in a manner tending very decidedly to his detri¬ 
ment. In fact, the voluntary contributor, if an office holder, is 
very much in the position of the man in the story, possibly as 
old as Joe Miller, who was forced to turn volunteer. 

Now of course political funds must exist; there are in a 
wide-spread campaign many things which cost money, such 
for example, the printing and distribution of pamphlets; the 
hiring of halls for meetings; the 'personal expenses of speakers. 
I say the personal expenses of speakers, for I do not think any 


15 


reputable man ought to receive pay from party organiza¬ 
tions for his services on the stump or political rostrum, from 
whence, as a citizen, he attempts to persuade his fellow-citi¬ 
zens to adopt his principles, to follow in the course which he 
believes to be the true one; and I am glad to think that the 
number of paid political orators, hireling patriots, is much 
smaller than the newspapers would sometimes have us believe. 
But how should such funds be raised ? Wholly by what are 
in truth voluntary contributions. The office-holder should 
not be compelled to contribute to them, or'be even expected, 
simply, because he is an office-holder, to do so. The salary 
paid to a city employee, generally speaking, is not too large— 
it is unjust to diminish it by a required contribution, yet this 
injustice is done, and the exaction of a contribution is rendered 
possible by the fact that the employee holds his office as a 
party man receiving a party reward—and the man who would 
indignantly spurn an attempt to wring from him a sum as a 
tribute or a bribe to an individual who claims to have pro¬ 
cured for him his office, or to have power to insure his continu¬ 
ance therein, or his dismissal therefrom, will promptly pay when 
the contribution is represented as for the party, and having 
paid, he will not trouble himself very much as to the use to 
which his money is to be put. So we see, arising from the 
same ultimate cause, not only the injustice to the office¬ 
holder, but other and serious evils—for it takes little thought 
to convince us that liberality of contributors may often cause 
to be overlooked slackness and want of efficiency in work, not 
to mention the fact that when the large number of office¬ 
holders in a great city is taken in consideration, a very brief 
calculation shows us that a very small contribution from each 
is all that will be necessary to raise that most portentous thing 
in a free country, a corruption fund, of no mean proportions. 

So much then for the evils, which, of course, have been 
merely sketched, which result from the confusion of the prov¬ 
inces of politics in the proper sense and of municipal affairs. 
What is the cure? The cure, like that of all deep-rooted 
evil which affect the body politic, must be sought not in mere 
statutes or ordinances, but in the force of public opinion. Here 
the cure is to be found in the education of the people—the 
teaching of the distinction which exists between political and 
municipal matters —Qui bene distinguit bene docuit —and 
when the distinction is once put well and fairly before the 
people, the work is well begun; when the people recognize 


16 


and act upon the distinction, the work is done, the cure s 
accomplished. But this, simple as it sounds, is not the 
work of a day. The greatest reforms seem simple enough 
after they have been accomplished. After the people have 
recognized and established them, the only wonder seems that 
they were not sooner carried to a successful termination, and 
yet, in many a case, the toil, the labor, the heart-breaking 
that it has cost to attain success! It was a little thing to give 
to the Roman plebs an officer who should have the power to 
forbid the passage* of a law whose tendency was to oppress 
them, an officer who should be able, not to originate law, but 
simply by his veto to prevent the further oppression and en¬ 
slavement, under form of law, of the great mass of the Roman 
people, yet it was not until after fifteen years of galling oppres¬ 
sion, under the name of a republic, and the secession to the 
Mons Sacer that the reform was obtained and the tribune 
elected. 

The reform of the British Parliament seemed simple and 
plain and right enough, after its adoption in 1832. It had 
merely deprived certain rotten boroughs of representation, 
reduced the representation of others in which it was in excess 
of their importance, and given representation to large and 
important constituencies who had been, up to that time, voice¬ 
less in the councils of the nation, and yet from the time of 
Pitt’s repeated motions for reform in 1782, 1788 and 1785 to 
the adoption of the measure was half a centurjr. 

So if it take some time to accomplish the great task of 
getting our fellow-citizens to do what it seems so natural that 
they should do—look to the man rather than his party, in 
selecting a person to fill a mere municipal office—do not let us 
be discouraged. If the principle for which we contend be 
right, it must, in the long run, conquer. 

“ There are such harvests as all master spirits 
Reap, haply not on earth, but reap no less 
Because the sheaves are bound by hands not theirs.” 

The people will see aright and do right some time. 
They will not always remain in blindness. They will not 
always thoughtlessly follow the behests or suggestions of the 
self-seeking, but they must have the truth kept before them, 
pressed home upon them, and, speaking for myself, I believe 
the education of the people to be the only cure for the evils 
resulting from the confusion which we deplore. I do not 


IT 


believe in the permanent good effect of any coterie or body 
of men, no matter how pure in intention, how zealous in good 
works its members may be, which will assume to dictate 
nominations to parties, recognizing them as such, or to say 
to one or the other, “ nominate men whom we consider 
good, or we will throw our force, our might as an organiza¬ 
tion, against your candidates, or put candidates of our own in 
the field.” Such a body has, of course, a right to exist; 
organized for a temporary purpose, for a special emergency, it 
may and often does produce a temporary good; it may tide 
over a peril; but I do not believe that by a long-continued 
existence it can be productive of permanent, lasting good, 
even if it should attract to itself such a following that it held 
the balance of power between the two great political parties. 
Its very corporate existence would present it before the eyes 
of the selfish office-seeker as something to be conciliated by 
him for his own purposes, as something which might be 
cajoled or tricked into his support, and it is very conceivable 
that a body having its origin in solicitude for the interests of 
purity and good government might be misled so far as to be¬ 
come, unwittingly, a tool for the advancement of unworthy 
men. It would be difficult to preserve such a coterie pure 
when once it had shown that it possessed power; membership 
in it would be sought for improper purposes, as a means of 
individual promotion; and, besides all this, as has been 
shown in the history of this city, such a body has a natural 
tendency to become self-sufficient and arrogant, even assuming 
to dictate to the people, and to brand them as ingrates for re¬ 
fusing to submit to dictation. How, it is a well-established 
fact that the people will not long stand dictation—unless you 
appeal to them to submit thereto in the name of party fealty, 
and then it is remarkable how much they will stand. 

But, while such an organization as has been indicated is 
of no permanent value, organizations of the proper sort may 
be of the greatest imaginable service to the community in 
assisting in the establishment of independence in voting for 
municipal offices, but they must be organizations which will 
educate the people in the underlying principle upon which such 
independence must rest; which will work with the people and 
not over them ; which will open the doors of membership 
wide to the people, and will disclaim firmly any right to 
restrain the individual independence of the citizen when once 
he has become a member. By such an organization much can 


18 


be done to rouse the people to the insistance upon reform, 
and without doubt the people can be roused to demand a 
reform. We have had a very striking proof of this in the 
recent forcing by the people of the exactment of a ballot 
reform law from a legislature, a majority of whose members 
were opposed to the principles upon which the bill rested but 
who were forced to yield to the pressure of a public opinion, 
which had been brought about by the constant steady presenta¬ 
tion to the people of the excellences of the system which they 
were asked to endorse. What intelligent presentation has 
done in one instance, it may do in another. Therefore, let there 
be kept constantly before the people in season, and out of 
season, this fact: A municipal officer is one who is to serve 
you in a business capacity, not one who is to make laws or 
determine a policy for the State or for the Union. 

As we look about us we find encouragement. The 
reform sought by your Association is rendered more easy of 
accomplishment by our new ballot system. Hot only is the 
ballot itself secret, so that a man may vote as he pleases, with¬ 
out the certainty of being “read out” of the party, and the 
risk of being refused admission to a party caucus in Congress 
if he happen to vote for a Receiver of Taxes or a Commis¬ 
sioner of Deeds not nominated by his party organization, but 
the provisions of the law bearing upon the right of nomina¬ 
tion and the presentation of the names of nominees to the 
public by means of the official ballot, render it much more 
easy, than it was under the old system, to put an independent 
candidate into the field, and invest his candidacy with a 
meaning. The Ballot Act, it is true, is susceptible of improve¬ 
ment, but it is a great stride in advance of the old system. 
Under the old system, unless a man had a party nomination, 
it was possible only at the cost of great expense of money and 
labor of individuals to get him before the public at all. Now 
the labor of nomination and certification once performed, the 
man selected by the proper number of nominators stands, so 
far as the presentation of his name and the means of voting for 
him are concerned, upon an equality with the candidate of the 
most powerful party in the country. 

Another thing which should render the work of reform 
more easy, is the fact that our municipal election is held at a 
different day from that upon which our Federal and State 
elections are held. It is to be regretted that our county elec¬ 
tions have not also been divorced from the Federal and State 


19 


With these advantages given to us, let us take heart! 
As we have seen great reforms accomplished in our day 
reform in the civil service; reform in the ballot—so let us 
hope that before long we may hail the achievement of another 
reform, which, acting upon the hearts and minds of the voters 
of the community, will bring to pass that they will no longer 
choose their municipal servants because they are of one polit¬ 
ical party or of the other, but because they seem to be the 
most fit men, presented for the voters’ choice, to do the work 
which the city requires to be done in the offices to be filled, 
and that the time will come when the consistent party man, 
the unselfish man who would make real sacrifices to advance 
those political principles which he holds almost as a part of 
his religion, to abandon which would be for him an act of 
base, arrant cowardice, to compromise which would be for 
him an act of dishonesty, who would vote for no man for 
any position in the State or Federal Government, in Congress, 
or in the Legislature, who would let or hinder the free course 
of those principles, and be enabled by holding such position 
to be a hinderer to them, may yet, when he comes to a muni¬ 
cipal election, vote, if he will, for a political opponent whom 
he believes the candidate most worthy of his choice, without 
having to justify his conduct to any one, and when no one 
will ever dream that his conduct in so voting needs justifica¬ 
tion ! 

Then shall we have what we all desire, a better governed 
city, officials with, an eye single to the proper performance of 
their duty, councilmen who will not regard their positions as 
affording an opportunity for personal gain, direct or indirect, 
or as mere stepping-stones to salaried office. I do not wish to 
speak unkindly of our city officials, or of our councilmen. 
¥e have some faithful officials, we have some faithful and 
public-spirited councilmen, Palmamqui meruit ferat, but does 
any one doubt that, taken as a whole, there is room for great 
improvement in our municipal service, or that the city would 
be much better served, if the test of selection were simply the 
relative fitness of the candidates for a municipal office, or that 
the officers themselves could and would do much better work 
were they relieved from much of the annoyance and burdens 
to which they are now subjected by holding office as party 
men, and made to feel that they held office as the result of 
a personal confidence reposed in them by their fellow-citizens ? 
I trow not! There can be no doubt. 


20 


Therefore, let the members of the League, and all who 
sympathize with them, do these things,—vote independently 
in accordance with their best judgment in all municipal elec¬ 
tions, express independently their opinions of candidates for 
municipal office, and sift thoroughly the evidence of their 
qualifications therefor, and by a constant agitation of the sub¬ 
ject, endeavor to impress upon the community the importance 
of maintaining in theory, and of acting upon, the distinction 
between politics and municipal affairs, between political and 
municipal offices. 


HENKY BUDD. 












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